The former soccer player reappeared, sans ball and cleats. Diana Taurasi didn’t pull off a Brandi Chastain moment when the final horn sounded, but it wasn’t too far removed.

An elimination game turned into a second chance for the Mercury, and when Taurasi dropped to her knees to the US Airways hardwood, looked upward and pumped her arms to the air, Phoenix somehow had forged a thrilling 77-76 victory in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals on Thursday night, tying the series at two games each.

So the team will travel East this weekend to play one more game Sunday.

The two players most responsible for the bedlam at US Airways Center were Taurasi and Cappie Pondexter, and they let out the loudest of the screams.

“I didn’t feel a thing,” Taurasi said. “It was the greatest moment.”

How it compares with her NCAA championship moments from her University of Connecticut days is anyone’s guess, a theory better left for her to decide should the Mercury win the title.

Getting there, however, wasn’t part of the plan.

For the second straight night the ball clanged and clanged some more, a second consecutive game of sub-40 percent shooting.